If you brought your Bibles tonight, I want you to grab them.
If you would, if you don't have a Bible, I like you anyway.
But if you have access to one, turn to Matthew chapter 20.
Matthew chapter 20.
And in a few moments, we're going to read, I'm going to read, verses 29 through 34.
Six verses.
It's the story out of the life of Jesus.
Before we get there, let me just, excuse me, take a minute to review where I feel like
the cook has cooked for us and what I've tried to be faithful to serve.
Our theme this week is, oh taste and see that the Lord is good.
God invites us to taste Him.
To taste God, that means to experience God.
That's more than just reading about God, that's more than just writing about God.
That's more than just listening to more facts about God.
That's experiencing God.
He wants us to experience Him.
Which leads me to the question, what does experiencing God look like?
Well there are lots of facets of who Jesus is and lots of different ways to experience
Him.
Sunday morning we talked about one of those facets.
Experiencing the confrontation of Jesus.
That's basically where He shines the light on our sinfulness.
The cry of our heart needs to regularly be, search me.
God, search me.
Now that would be a real scary prayer if you didn't know who was searching you.
But because your lover is searching you, you can even pray, search me and be peaceful about
it.
You know when my daughter was little, if she climbed up into my lap and looked right in
my face and said, Daddy, would you show me anything in my life that's hurtful or sinful?
I guarantee you it would cause my heart to flip.
I'd be so gentle with her.
And God's gentle with us when we say, you know Lord, honestly I want you to search me.
Show me anything in my life that's hurtful, that's sinful.
And then lead me and deal with me.
So we talked about experiencing the confrontation of Jesus, the cry of our heart is search me.
Sunday night we talked about experiencing the forgiveness of Jesus.
And the question of the evening is a good question.
Will you let Him forgive you?
Will you?
Will you let Him forgive you?
He longs to forgive you more than a mother longs to rescue her baby from a burning building.
Isn't that good news?
God loves to forgive us.
He loves it.
Last night we talked about not only experiencing the confrontation of God, search me, experiencing
the forgiveness of God.
Will you let Him forgive you?
Experiencing the love of God.
And I ask a question that I think maybe sounds simple, but it's profound, not because I ask
it but it's just profound, is will you let Him love you?
Will you let Him love you?
I love what Cory 10 Boom says, sometimes we just need to stop wrestling and start nestling.
When I grew up in a tradition that said we were saved to serve, boy I just served and
served and served and I just served myself into a whole.
And I never stopped long enough to just be a son.
One of the fun things about being a son as well as a servant, we need to serve, his sons
just crawl up and sometimes just let their daddy love them.
We need to do that.
I hope you don't get too busy with the things, the stuff of ministry that regularly you just
crawl up in your daddy's lap and say Lord I just really need you just to love on me.
And he enjoys doing that.
Tonight I want to talk about not experiencing the confrontation of God, the forgiveness
of God, the love of God, I'm going to talk about experiencing the touch of God.
Just experiencing the touch of God.
The reason I like these six verses in the book of Matthew is that Jesus really did touch
somebody there.
I mean it was the real deal.
He really did touch somebody.
Let me ask you a question, if Jesus was just going to touch one person on your pew, just
one, would you be the one He would touch tonight?
Let me ask you a different way.
Do you qualify for a God touch?
Do you qualify?
If He was just going to touch one person, I mean really the real deal, I mean if He was
really going to touch somebody on your pew, would you be the most likely candidate that
He would touch?
Again, I got this weird notion in my mind growing up, the best candidate for a God touch
was the person who memorized Lamentations before breakfast.
And I never felt like I was in a position to receive the real deal.
And the more I have received touches from God, the more I believe God's taught me just
some simple, simple things about qualifying for a touch from God.
It's made oh taste and see that the Lord is good even better.
It's even more delicious than I thought.
These six verses, put on a pair of sandals, go back a couple thousand years and let's
get in this passage.
I want to make some simple observations that have really encouraged me.
Through 20, 29, 34, walk with me through these words.
And as they were going out from Jericho, they, Jesus and the disciples, a great multitude
followed Him, capital H, Jesus.
Get the picture, big crowd following Jesus, probably lots of noise.
Verse 30, and behold two blind men.
Now this particular passage is in two other gospels, Mark 10 and Luke 18, and in Mark
10, the two blind men, one is identified in the Mark 10 passage and his name is Bartimaeus
and the Bible calls him a beggar.
So my assumption is that both of these men who were blind were beggars.
And behold two blind men, beggars, sitting by the road, hearing that Jesus was passing
by, obviously not seeing.
Why?
Because they were blind.
Are you with me?
Okay.
Notice what these two blind men do as they heard Jesus was passing by.
They cried out, say, Lord have mercy on me, son of David.
Now you would have thought that this crowd would have been really juiced.
You would have thought here they were, the need meter, too needy, going to be a divine
connection, this is going to be great.
Wrong?
Verse 31, and the multitude sternly told them to be quiet.
Shut up!
Shut up, you stupid beggars!
But I like these, I like them already, but I really like them.
Now listen to what this conjunction says, but they cried out all the more.
I mean the paraphrase is, hey crowd, no, you shut up, round two, Jesus, have mercy on me.
These next three words are three of my favorite words in the whole Bible, verse 32.
When Jesus stopped, I remember thinking about that.
You know when I was a kid growing up, Superman, you know, who could stop Superman?
Not a speeding bullet.
Who could stop God?
The humble, persistent cry of a needy heart stops God in his tracks.
Whoa.
And he called them, the two beggars, and he said, this is an interesting question, what
do you want me to do for you?
Now this is the God who knew every hair on their head, every day that was numbered, knew
the moment the sperm and the egg connected, he knew everything about everything, but he
wanted these guys to participate with him, and he asked them a real specific question.
What do you want?
What do you need from me?
Verse 33, and they said to him, Lord, we want to be a missionary in Africa.
No.
They were just a lot more earthy than that.
They were just a lot more real than that.
Lord, we want our eyes to be open.
Jesus, you see these things right here?
They don't work.
Could you open up these things right here?
I like these next few phrases, and move with compassion.
You know, an author I've been reading this year who's blessed me a lot, he made this
statement.
This is something to write down and pray about.
He said, we are never more like Jesus than when we are choked with compassion for needy
people.
Ooh.
Jesus moved with compassion, touched their eyes.
Now my tradition would have said in verse 34, and moved with compassion, Jesus taught
a Bible study about blindness.
And moved with compassion, Jesus had a discussion.
No, in this passage, moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes, and immediately
they regained their sight, and they followed Him.
Oh, really?
I tell you, when you experience regularly the manifested presence of God, when you experience
regularly the taste of Jesus, the most overwhelming response is to follow Him.
You just follow Him.
Follow Him.
So I want to break this down, again, some simple things.
This is a life message for me.
It's not a sermon.
It really is a life message.
Let me give you some simple things, and as we go through this, you do a gut inventory
if you qualify for a touch from Jesus.
Number one, these guys were needy people.
Do you qualify?
But in that, these two blind beggars that were needy, what I see in that, which digs
a little deeper, is they were honest about their needs.
They were honest about their needs.
How real is it for you to just be honest about your needs?
For some reason, I think we're embarrassed about our needs.
I'm learning that needs are real friends because they can be doorways to God.
Matter of fact, the most shallow, superficial, boring people that I know are some of the
most need-free people I know.
Now, it's not that anybody's need-free, but some people are just not in touch with their
needs, or they're not honest about their needs.
They are boring because they're shallow, because they're superficial.
I love to hang around people who have been incredibly needy and have allowed that neediness
to be a doorway to intimacy with God.
I love to hang around people like that.
You know, potentially, the person in this room that would best qualify for a God touch
would be the neediest, and the person who would be willing to be honest about their
needs.
So, are we honest about our needs?
I love what Larry Krabs says, and I said to the staff this afternoon, I think I'm far
more on a regular basis a godly mess than a godly man.
I believe that.
Being honest about our needs.
I mean, Mike Dicke used to do a television commercial years ago on deodorant.
I hated it, because he would say, never let them see you sweat.
You remember that one?
Translated, that means never let anybody see how needy you are.
Those people miss God.
Secondly, hey, hang on, we're going deeper.
Elevator is going down.
Are you honest about your needs?
Floor number two, these guys were not only honest about their needs, they were needy
out loud.
You know, it's one thing to be honest about your needs, but it's an entirely different
thing to be needy out loud.
I mean, these two blind beggars, one of which was Bartabeth, Jesus is coming by, they were
incredibly needy, but they took elevator down another layer and they were needy out loud.
Lord, have mercy on us!
That's not about honesty, that's about humility.
You know, it's one thing to be needy, but it's really humbling to be needy out loud.
The church I've been out in the last ten years, it's called Church of the Open Door.
Some people call it Church of the Open Soar, because we do have a lot of needy people.
But I came out of the real professional corporate church environment, first time I ever went
to Open Door, first Sunday, first Sunday, I'm sitting there minding my own business,
the guy behind me stands up right in the middle of the service, help me, help me, help me!
I'm looking at the order of service and I don't see that anywhere.
But even that was not the weirdest part.
The weirdest part was that no one else was weirded out but me!
I mean, they were just, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and people moved toward him and prayed for him.
I didn't know I had come into an environment where permission was really given for people
to be needy out loud.
I mean, again, I grew up in a tradition, I'm not trying to be mean, but I'm trying to be
honest.
We were never needy out loud in my church growing up, because we cared a whole lot more
about how things looked than how they really were.
I may have told you this before, but we'd come in on Sunday morning and play verbal
volleyball.
How you doing?
Fine!
Well, how you doing?
Fine!
Well, how's the family?
Fine!
Well, we're all fine!
But you also know what was true at our church growing up?
Jesus didn't stop there very often.
People who experience a God touch are honest about their needs, and they're even needy
out loud when they need to be.
That's about humility.
You know one of the things I've learned about intimacy?
This is not original thought, but intimacy never happens unless you're needy out loud.
You know the best definition of intimacy I've ever heard?
Intimacy is intumacy.
You know why some of you are not intimate?
You never let anybody see inside you.
That's why intimacy is scary.
It's risky.
That's being honest out loud.
Well the third thing, strap in, going down to floor three.
These guys were not only needy, that's about honesty, they were not only needy out loud.
This third thing is so subtle, so one of these well does that you'll miss it if you're not
careful.
But I've got to be honest, this third point is one of the main reasons a lot of times
I miss a touch from God.
I'm being personal here.
It's not only were these guys needy, honesty, they were needy out loud, humility, they were
needy out loud to Jesus.
To Jesus.
I think one of the biggest challenges of our lives is that when we get honest about our
needs, we even get needy out loud, we have that bent, here's the depravity piece, born
to wander, Lord I feel it, born to leave the God I love, I'm incredibly needy, I'm needy
out loud, but I'm taking my needs to the wrong place.
Jeremiah 2.13 written 2615 years ago, but it is more relevant than the USA Today.
Jeremiah 2.13, my people have committed two evils, that's not starting real good.
Evil number one, they've forsaken me, the fountain of living water, by God, independence,
I don't believe you to meet my needs, by God.
They're grabbing a shovel, they're going, Jeremiah 2.13 says, evil number two, they're
digging wells, they're broken wells that hold no water, but we're digging like crazy,
I'm needy, I'm needy out loud, but I'm at a false well, an idol, a false God.
Dig dig dig dig dig.
You know what the essence of sin is?
John 16 says, when the Holy Spirit convinces us of sin, a piece of that convincing will
be that we don't believe on Jesus.
The essence I think of every sin apart from rebellion is unbelief.
I do not believe you to meet my need, I believe this to meet my need.
God gives me a promise, He will meet my need, sin gives me a promise, no I will meet your
need, your need.
That's why the Bible calls it a fight of faith, who are you going to believe?
Are you going to believe that God meets your needs?
Are you going to believe that sin meets your needs?
It's a battle of promises.
You know, you don't ever sin out of duty, you don't ever wake up and say, oh, I guess
I just better sin today.
I don't really want to at all, but I guess I just better, it's been a while.
See sin makes a promise to you, God makes a promise to you.
It's a battle of promises, it's a fight of faith, it's a good fight, it's the right
fight of faith.
Every time I sin, I am believing the lie that that will make my life better.
And it's saying to God, I don't believe a life with you will ultimately be better than
a life of sin.
I think one of our big problems is that we are unbelieving believers.
That's kind of an oxymoron, isn't it?
We've believed on Jesus for our salvation, but we don't believe on Him to meet the needs.
Buy, dig.
Let me illustrate, I had a, I'll use a teenager illustration here, some of you may have heard
this, but it was great, I had a call in the morning at 3 a.m., 3 a.m. early.
I answered the phone and there's a little girl on the other end of it, her name was Jennifer.
I was one of the pastors at the church and at least she started the conversation with
an intelligent question, she said, did I wake you up?
And I can be very sarcastic at 3 a.m. in the morning, I said, no, I had to get up to answer
the phone.
And I quote, she said, pray, pray, pray, she said, at one minute after 3.
And I'm sitting there about halfway in a coma, pray, pray, pray, and I said, Jennifer, give
me some more information here.
And she said, okay, Billy, Billy, Billy.
Folks, I'm quoting this, so all I've got to pray, pray, pray, and Billy, Billy, Billy,
and it's about 90 seconds after 3.
I said, Jennifer, you're going to have to help me, and she said, okay.
She said, you know Billy?
I knew Billy, he played in our worship band, good guy, love God.
He said, she said, Billy and I have been dating a few years, and she said, we've been talking
about marriage, and at 1.30 this morning, he broke up with me.
He said, I want you out of my life, I never want to be with you again.
She said, it's the first time in my life I've ever thought about suicide.
Pray, pray, pray, Billy, Billy, Billy.
I said, Jennifer, what do you want me to pray?
And she said, pray that God will bring Billy back in my life again.
I said, oh.
I said, do you mind if I ask the Holy Spirit if he's got any impression about how I should
pray for you?
She said, no.
And I said, Lord, you know, I don't know how to pray as I ought, and sometimes I need you
to give me wisdom how to pray, and if you don't, I'll just pray what's in the heart.
But if you've got something special for me, I'd like to hear it.
And occasionally this happens, not a lot, but occasionally, I mean, God's Spirit just
began to be active in me, and basically, it seemed to me that I heard words like this
in my heart.
Don't misunderstand me, David, the Holy Spirit seemed to say, I really, really love Billy,
but Billy is not her guy.
Billy is for God.
Oh, whoa.
Sweet little girl came to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, to
retreat Queen.
And I don't say that to make fun of her.
She's a sweet girl.
I got back on the phone, and I said, Jennifer, can I ask you a question?
She said, yeah.
I said, I really need you to think about this.
I said, do you believe I love you?
And she said, that's kind of a weird question.
I said, no, I don't want to ask you.
What do you think about it?
Do you believe I love you?
She said, yeah, I believe you love me, David.
I said, because I got something kind of hard to say to you.
I believe when I prayed, I believe the Holy Spirit said to me, Billy's not your guy.
Billy's your God, with a little G. And it got real quiet.
She began to weep a little bit, and she said, all she said was these words.
She said, that's it.
That's it.
She said, about a year ago, my life just began to wither spiritually.
I was still doing all the outside stuff, but my life began to wither.
And she said, David, I think very subtly.
I started going and taking my needs to Billy.
Taking my needs.
Let me ask you a real penetrating question that I want you to think about.
When you don't go to God, when you don't go, what's your most often chosen false God?
Because you don't always go to God.
And I don't either.
Where is the place that when you get needy and you don't go to Jesus, where do you go?
You know, it would be a good thing to think about.
What is your most often chosen broken well?
I know what mine is.
It's my wife.
I remember I came home from a meeting a few years ago, and I was empty.
Oh, I was so empty.
I was so empty I couldn't spit.
I was so empty.
And I came home, and when I get empty, sometimes I can feel blue, and that's just the way it
goes.
And I just need to fill up again.
I need to do what I tell you to do.
I just need to go to Jesus and get full again.
But I didn't want to go to Jesus.
Well, why?
I don't know.
I just didn't want to.
So I started going to my wife.
Suddenly, I mean, I didn't have a neon sign.
I'm going to suck you dry.
I didn't have that.
But I just started pulling on her, just pulling on her to meet my needs, to meet my deep needs.
She was patient with me for about two days.
And finally, she looked at me, and I'll never forget what she said.
She said this.
You better let this end, some of you.
She said, you know what, David?
God didn't create wives to fill up empty husbands.
That's why Jesus came.
That's what I tried to say, too.
I said, thank you very much for sharing.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
Very suddenly, I was trying to get filled from her.
There are places that my wife can't go.
You know, a lot of us, particularly in relationships, you've heard this before, but let me say it
again.
We'll get empty because it's been a while since we've come to get filled back up with
the presence of Jesus.
We'll get empty, and we'll go, we'll try to get, you get one empty man, one empty woman.
They're trying to fill each other up.
It's like two ticks and no dog.
And the ticks are mad at each other.
So what we do a lot of times is we teach ticks how to relate better to each other, to have
more people skills.
What Jesus wants us to do is come to Him to get full, just to get full.
Back to the anatomy of a God touch.
They were needy, honest.
They were needy out loud, that was humble.
That's humble.
They were needy out loud to Jesus.
The other thing I notice is right here is they get needy out loud to Jesus right before
the touch.
Right before the touch, resistance happens.
In 25 years of ministry, I've seen that pattern happen so much it's not even a surprise anymore.
Resistance pops up.
Verse 31, we'll crawl in our laps.
In the tent, it was a crowd saying, shut up, shut up, blind man, hey Bartimaeus, shut up.
But for a lot of us to come and we get needy and we really do need a touch and we're willing
to get honest, as God works in us, we're willing to get honest out loud, we're willing to go
to Jesus.
Right as we begin to make the move, verse 31, we'll crawl in our laps.
It won't be a crowd, it might be fear.
What would people think?
Pride.
I'll work this out myself.
Unbelief.
I don't even know if he could.
Shame.
You're not even worthy of a touch.
Well, that's the truth.
Touches are gifts.
Aren't you glad you don't have to be worthy of a gift?
On Christmas, when people give me gifts, I never say, oh you shouldn't have, I'm not
worthy.
I just say, just keep on giving, yeah.
That's the fun thing about gifts.
You don't have to be worthy of a gift.
You know tonight, and we've already had a ministry time and I don't know where we go
tonight, but I've got to believe that there are some of you that the Lord is saying, you
know I want you to be more honest with me than you've been in a while.
I want you to be honest out loud.
That doesn't mean you stand where you are and you scream, but it's you get out here,
listen here, out loud.
You come to Jesus rather than your husband, rather than your health, rather than your
money.
Whatever your particular false god of choice is, it may be you've been going to.
And just as you begin to get there, there's that resistance.
These guys resisted the resistance.
Shut up, you're right.
I'm not worthy of a touch, but I'm going anyway.
I'm not absolutely sure what God's touch will do.
It might not happen right now, but I want to start the process.
You're right, I don't understand everything about a God touch, but I'm still going.
What will people think that I'm needy?
Wow, what a revelation.
And Jesus, finally, just the last comment I want to make is when these guys got to Jesus,
which I think really is the question of the night, he asked them the question, what do
you want me to do for you?
And that's kind of the last layer in my understanding of a God touch.
It's just to be specific.
God, I need you to bless me.
That's not very specific.
Let me ask you a question.
If Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, came into this room tonight, asked the person
beside you to move over, he sat down right beside you, put his arm around you, he looked
right into your face, and he asked you the question he asked these two blind guys 2,000
years ago, what would you say?
What would you want me to do for you?
What would you say?
I was preaching in Panama City Beach, Florida, and I asked that question, and the little
young adult woman there said, boy, David, in a heartbeat, I knew what I needed God to
do.
She said, I had made a commitment to God to be a virgin when I got married, and about
a year ago, I gave my virginity away, and the night I gave my virginity away, I got
that on my knees in my bed, and I asked God to forgive me, but she said, over a year,
I had this weight on the back of my head of condemnation, and she said, every day I got
up, I just felt the weight of my past, and she said, boy, when you said, what do you
want Jesus to do?
She said, I literally put my hands behind my head because I felt the weight, and she
said, Jesus, I want to ask you to get this off of me.
I want to ask you to get this off of me.
Get this off of me.
Maybe some of you are just dragging around some old chains and garbage of the past, and
the enemy just beats you up with it every day, and maybe God just wants to lift it off
of you.
I was in Spokane, Washington, speaking, and a little guy came up to me on Saturday afternoon.
He had a Mohawk haircut, and he had spray painted it three different colors.
I noticed that.
His name was Derek, and he said, I've tried to commit suicide four times this year.
He said, I live on the streets.
I've run away from home.
I hate my parents.
I've got ADD.
I've dropped out of school in a gang.
In my life, it's just going down the tubes.
He said, I don't really enjoy listening to you much either.
I said, that's all right.
I said, Derek, do you believe there's a God?
He said, I don't know.
I said, well, I do, so that's one out of two.
I said, second question I want to ask you.
If there is a living God, and He were to say to you, this is the place I want to start
by touching you, where do you think the first place God would want to touch you?
Where do you think that would be?
He looked at me like, David, I just went into the biggest cafeteria in the world with thousands
of entrees, and you're asking me which one do I want to get to eat.
I've got so many needs.
I wouldn't have a clue where you want to start.
I said, Derek, are you open for an experiment?
He said, I'm pretty bored.
I said, I want you to bow your Mohawk head right here.
And I said, I'm going to put my hand on your head, and I'm going to ask God to tell you
the need He wants to start with.
And I'm going to ask Him to put a word in your mind, and it be so real you can't get
that word out.
Now, I'm kind of on the edge of my faith here.
This is kind of fish are cut bait time.
And he bowed his head, and I thought the Lord wanted me to take this risk, so I put my head
right here on the spray paint, and I said, Jesus, I'm asking you to speak to Derek and
put a word in his mind.
And don't let that word leave.
And whatever that word is, living God, let that be the place you want to start.
I just sat there waiting.
After a period of time, a few seconds, I don't remember, boy, all of a sudden that old head
went.
And I said, what happened, Derek?
He said, I think he spoke to me.
And, oh, great man of faith that I am, I said, he did.
And then I kind of recovered like Barney Fife.
Well, yeah, he did.
Oh, yeah, he did.
You bet he did.
And I said, what was the word he put in your mind?
Sixteen-year-old boy, he said to me, I'll never forget, he said the word was broken.
I said, Derek, what do you think that word means?
He said, well, I'm 16 years old, and I haven't cried since I was six.
And he said, my heart is as hard as concrete.
And he said, I think the living God wants to start by just softening my heart, breaking
my heart.
And I said, well, that's something you can't do, that's something I can't do.
That's a God thing.
Let's believe him to do it.
I watched that kid that night come and stand, stood for a while right at the altar, and
I'm watching, and I did a little bit later, I watched God kaboom that guy.
He hit his knees, and I watched that kid sob for the first time in ten years.
And God gave him a tender, soft heart, and he met Jesus.
I mean, I could go on, but one other that blessed me in terms of God touch, we had a
little retreat with just a few kids, about 60 kids, and we had an open microphone where
kids would come and cry out loud to God to touch Him.
We just said, now we've talked about, now let's do it.
And I didn't know anybody would do that.
I mean, go back when you were an adolescent, that'd be a tough one, wouldn't it?
And this little girl came down and she stood in front of that microphone.
She was a little bit, I thought maybe she was just a little bit overweight maybe, but
she stood in front of that microphone and she said this to Jesus.
She said, Jesus, I'm four months pregnant, and she said, I'm not married.
And she said, the thing that I think I need from you is courage, because I'm really thinking
about aborting my baby.
And if you don't give me courage, I will.
And I had said to the people, if people do cry out loud, you might be the Jesus with
skin to pray with them, whatever.
In the moment that girl said that, a little blond-headed girl sitting out there, she was
16 years old, and she started doing this.
And finally she got up and she walked down and she stood beside this little girl, and
I guess she forgot that it was magnified, but trembling.
She just said, I've never done anything like this before in my whole life.
But she said, I was sitting back there and she said, you said you needed courage.
She said, my mother was 16 and pregnant and started thinking about having an abortion.
And she needed courage.
And one day a person prayed for her and God gave her courage.
And that's why around the day she said, I think I'm supposed to pray for you.
And folks, I watched that little 16-year-old white-haired girl lay hands on that 16-year-old
pregnant unwed mother, and in all of my life I've never heard a more beautiful, passionate
prayer.
And I watched God land on that girl.
Kaboom!
Touch!
Boom!
Excuse me, didn't mean to scare you.
This week, I close with this, but this week we've been talking about tasting.
Oh, tasting, see, that's the worst kind.
Tonight is about tasting, experiencing the touch of God.
Who qualifies?
The needy person.
Just people who are willing to be honest.
Not the fine, fine, no, no.
I know Pastor Walker said this before, but in Texas I had a man say to me, the bar is
a lot safer place for me to be honest than the church.
That's a bad thing.
This needs to be the safest place in the world for us to talk about what's real.
And if we cannot do it here, where in the world can we do it?
People who are honest about your needs, people who are honest out loud, people who bring
their needs to Jesus.
People when the resistance comes, persist through the resistance.
Oh, you should.
And people who are specific.
This is where I need to touch from you.
I just want you to bow your heads just for a moment.
I guess I just want to ask you to just spend a moment in the presence of God and ask the
Lord, Lord where am I needy?
Where's a place you want to touch me?
I don't know if you're like me, there's a lot of times I don't even know where I'm
needy.
But the places that I think I'm needy are not the deepest places.
Maybe you need to do like Derek.
Lord put a word in my mind.
I'm so bitter Lord.
I need to touch right in the middle of that bitterness.
Lord I'm so afraid.
Would you inject faith into my fear?
Lord I'm just so discouraged.
Lord I'm just so tired of doing the dance.
I just need to rest.
I need you to hold me.
Lord I'm so angry.
Lord I'm so confused.
Lord I've lost my joy.
My Christian life is just one big cliche.
I've still got all the words but I've lost the song.
Lord I'm stuck.
I haven't grown in years.
Lord I'm not a Christian and I want to become a Christian.
Lord I'm all bound up in some stuff that I can't get out.
And the more I try to get out it's like hitting the tar baby.
I get more and more stuck.
Do you feel verse 31 yet?
Do you feel anything crawling up in your lap?
No you can do this tomorrow.
You need to receive a touch from the Lord tonight.
Lord I'm real selfish.
Lord I'm real apathetic.
As Dave just leads us into ministry time, if you need to be needy out loud a way to do
that would be to just slip to the front and a prayer partner would come and pray for you
and they could be Jesus with skin for you.
If you don't know what you need ask.
And you know some of you could be really full tonight.
There might not be one need you have that Jesus has not already been meeting.
Or you can just worship of what a wonderful provider.
This altar is open.
Go free to come and Jesus with skin can come around you and pray.
If you've got your Bibles I'm going to ask you to do a difficult thing.
Turn two places at the same time.
Can you handle that?
1 Kings chapter 3 verse 5.
Then put your finger there.
1 Kings 3, 5.
Luke chapter 10.
Now while you sit in that uncomfortable position let me review with you for just about two
minutes.
This week I believe the food that the cook wanted to cook up for us and wanted me as
a table waiter to serve comes out of the theme of oh taste and see that the Lord is good
Psalm 34, 8.
He invites us to taste Him.
That's about experience.
It's not just filling up our mind with more knowledge.
Not that that's bad necessarily.
It's not just writing about God.
It's not just listening about God.
It's experiencing God.
He wanted us this week to get a fresh taste.
Sunday morning we talked about experiencing Jesus as a confronter or a convictor.
That had to do with looking at a fresh, taking a fresh look at our depravity.
Smelling our cesspool if you will.
Dealing with our sinfulness.
And the cry of the heart is break me, search me, break me.
Experiencing the confrontation of Jesus.
That sounds bad but it's good.
It's good.
It hurts so good.
Sunday night we talked about experiencing Jesus not only as a confronter but experiencing
Jesus as a forgiver.
That was really good.
Surprised by His mercy.
Startled by His passion.
Monday night we talked about experiencing the love of Jesus.
Tasting the love of Jesus.
That I'm wanted.
I'm wanted.
I'm embraced.
I'm secure.
I'm understood.
Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.
Tasting His love.
Last night I talked about experiencing the touch of Jesus.
Who qualifies for the touch?
It's the needy person.
That's good news for me.
It's the needy out loud person.
It's the needy out loud person who brings their needs to Jesus.
Not a false god.
It's the person that as the enemy resists the touch, we persist through the resistance.
And it's the person who is just specific.
What do you want me to do for you?
He said to those two blind guys.
This is what I need.
Tonight I want to talk about a subject that I think this church probably knows a lot about
that I would serve the meal anyway.
I want to talk about experiencing the voice of Jesus.
Being led by the Spirit.
You know I have never had to ask God to bless this topic because He just always seems to
say to me, say it and I will bless it because I just like it so much.
He really, if I taste His heart tonight, He really likes what I'm talking about tonight.
He likes it.
First Kings 3, 5.
Are you there?
That was an audience participation question.
Are you there?
Okay.
Now I want to ask a question right before I read a few verses out of 1 Kings 3, 5.
If God appeared to you in your bedroom one night in a way that you could see Him, it
was a real live epiphany, I don't even know what that word means but I like that word.
But if He appeared to you and He basically asked you this question, He said, hey, I'm
willing to give you any one thing, what do you want?
Don't answer here, answer here.
What would you ask Him for?
I'll give you any one thing you want.
What do you want?
Well, let's we blow that off and think, well, that's a stupid illustration.
Maybe parts of it are stupid but do you know something similar to that actually happened
in Biblical history?
Now we're at 1 Kings 3, 5.
Just want to read a few verses out of this and then I want to go back to Luke 10.
In Gibeon 3, 5, 1 Kings, the Lord appeared to Solomon, there it is, in a dream, in night,
and God said, ask what you wish Me to give you.
What do you want, Solomon?
Now because of some time I just want to move down to verse 9 and I want you to see what
Solomon asked for.
He could ask for anything.
So give thy servant, Solomon says, an understanding heart.
Another translation for that word understanding is the word hearing.
God, this is what I want.
Give me a heart with ears on it.
Give me an unusual ability to hear your voice.
To judge thy people, to discern between good and evil.
For who's able to judge this great people of thine?
He was the king.
It's God's reaction in verse 10, it was pleasing in the sight of the Lord that Solomon had
asked this thing.
And notice the growing excitement in God's heart and God said to him, because you've
asked this thing and you've not asked for yourself long life, nor have you asked for
riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the life of your enemies, but you've asked
for discernment.
Again, a different translation, hearing to understand justice.
Behold, I've done according to your words.
I've given you a wise and a hearing heart so that there has been no one like you before
you nor shall one like you arise after you.
Verse 13, again notice God's excitement.
And I've also given you what you've not asked for.
What you've asked for has blessed me so much, I'm going to dump a bunch of other stuff
on you that you didn't even ask for.
I'm going to give you riches and honor so that there won't be any among you, the kings
like you all your days.
Go to Luke chapter 10.
Verses 38 through 42.
Luke 10, 38 through 42, a real well known passage.
But boy, what a big one.
Let this one land on you.
You've heard it a hundred times.
Let it land freshly on you.
Now is day, Jesus and the disciples were traveling along.
He, capital H, Jesus, entered a certain village and a woman named Martha welcomed Jesus into
her home.
And she had a sister called Mary.
Notice what Mary was doing.
Who moreover was listening to the Lord's word seated at His feet.
I mean the posture with her was just basically this.
She was a listener.
She was a hero.
Verse 40, but Martha was distracted with all of her preparations for Jesus.
And she came up to Jesus and said, Lord, do you not care if you ever said that to the
Lord?
Lord, don't you care that my sisters let me do all this over and don't tell her to help
me?
I want you to notice verses 41 and 42.
This is huge folks.
This is from God with skin.
But the Lord answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about
so many things.
Look at me for a minute.
Does that does that one line ever describe you?
You are worried and bothered about so many things.
Welcome to life in the nineties.
This is what I love in verse 42.
Get this.
This is good news.
But only a few things are necessary.
Worried and bothered about so many things.
Yes, Lord got my attention.
But really only a few things are necessary.
If the verse even stops there, I'd still be on the edge of my folding chair.
Only a few many just a few things.
I go into Christian bookstores and I tell you, I want to take a nap.
You know, 309 ways to feels complicated.
912 ways to have devotions.
114 ways to be a good dad.
And yet I hear Jesus say only a few things are necessary.
But listen to this.
He nears it down even even further.
Really only one.
Whoa.
For Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
Go back one page, Luke chapter 8, 19 through 21, or several pages.
Sorry.
Luke chapter 8, 19 through 21.
This passage is about listening.
About listening.
Verse 19, 20 and 21 of Luke 8.
And his mother and brothers came to Jesus and they were unable to get to him because
of the crowd.
And it was reported to him, your mother and your brothers are standing outside with you
to see you.
But he answered Jesus and said to them, my mother and my brothers, the people who are
more intimate with me than even my biological family are those who hear the word of God
and do it.
In 1974, I was about three and a half years old in the Lord.
And I heard a message on hearing God, listening to God.
And it so harpooned me, it so penetrated me, I couldn't go out for coffee afterwards.
I went back to my hotel room and just laid on the bed.
And I said, you know, God, on my best day, I'm goofy.
That's my best day.
And I don't know what all I want to be, but I want to tell you, one thing I really want
to be, I want to be a listener to the voice of the Spirit of God.
And that was 22 years ago.
And let me just give you a few things that maybe you already know and maybe you don't
about listening to God.
Just some observations.
Observation number one, which almost goes without saying, but I want to say it is this.
You know, hearing God is a normal thing.
It's not an abnormal thing.
My church tradition, if you had somebody in the church that said, well, you know, I believe
the Spirit of God is telling me this.
I mean, we just kind of go, hmm, really?
Now, I realize this truth I'm talking about tonight is probably one of the most abused
truths in the body of Christ.
I know that.
I mean, with my medical condition, I had a guy come up to me one time and he says, I
believe the Holy Spirit told me to tell you to take a coffee enema.
I don't believe the Holy Spirit told him that.
I almost want to say you first, you know?
Decap or decap, you know?
I don't think I am...
I don't think I'm naive to the abuses of this, but every truth in Scripture gets abused and
I ain't going to throw it out.
I mean, the truth of grace gets so abused, it's unbelievable, but I ain't throwing grace
out.
The truth of listening to the Holy Spirit gets incredibly abused, but I want to bring
this back there.
I just want to say to you, it is so normal in a relationship, not with the historical
Jesus, but a living Jesus, to hear Jesus.
It's just normal.
I mean, tomorrow I'm going to come home, I'm going to meet my wife at the baggage claim
in Minneapolis.
Things will go into slow motion and there she'll be.
She'll say, I love you.
I miss you.
I'm probably just having a fantasy, but anyway.
She'll probably say, the trash is just all over the house.
You know, when I meet her at baggage claim, my response when she speaks to me is not going
to be...
She spoke to me.
That's not going to be my response.
Well, and you would look at me just as normal and say, well, of course that wouldn't be
your response.
What a stupid response that would be.
And if I pressed you on the issue, I'd say, well, why is that so normal?
Well, she's alive, you're alive, you're in a relationship.
The key to a good relationship is communication.
Of course she spoke to you.
Yeah, but I'll tell you, we get into walking with Jesus and listening to the voice of the
Holy Spirit and all of a sudden it feels real abnormal.
First observation that's almost to a new point, I just want to say, it's normal.
It is normal.
It's normal.
Second thing I want to say, after thinking about this for 20 something years, one of
the most often repeated phrases in scripture is this phrase, he who has ears to hear, let
him hear.
Jesus said that 10 times after the ascension, the Holy Spirit said that six times.
Third observation, most of what, again, my experience that I've heard God say to me has
been encouragement.
I think he loves it, just tell us he loves it.
Most of what I've heard God say to me in the last 22 years, standing back and looking at,
it's been far more love talk than even task talk.
And I think he does give us tasks and he gives us assignments, but I think if we learn to
hear him, he just says a lot of stuff like, I love you.
I was in a wallpaper store years ago when my daughter was about, I don't know, seven.
She was about navel height.
Saturday morning I opened up the Minneapolis Star and Tribune and I noticed this huge wallpaper
sale.
That was the good news.
You know, four rolls for a dollar.
The bad news is two and a half million people live in the Twin Cities.
I got to this wallpaper store and I mean, it was a massive humanity.
I took my daughter, little girl with me, and we get into this wallpaper store.
It's the first time, I'm not kidding you, where you moved without having to move your
feet.
My daughter's about, again, navel height.
Finally she goes, Daddy, I can't breathe.
I can't breathe.
I reached down and I grabbed her.
It was during the summer and I put her up on my shoulders.
She had those little shorts on, those little chubby legs.
I started just kind of walking like this, but again, you know, all of a sudden I looked
at those little chubby legs and I found myself patting those legs.
After a few minutes, I found myself not caring about wallpaper anymore.
I put my head up and I just said, Deva?
She said what?
I said, you know what?
What?
I said, I just love you.
You know what she said?
She said, I know.
You know why she knew?
She heard it a lot.
Most of what I've heard God say to me has been encouragement.
Much of what I've heard God say to me, wow, well, duh, has come through the scriptures.
You know, if I want to catch a fish, I could wait for it to rain and fish in my driveway,
couldn't I?
I mean, if I wanted to.
But I don't think my chances of catching a fish would be very good.
I want to go where the fish hang out.
And I've learned, again, simple basic truth, but I've learned God hangs around His Word.
He hangs around His Word.
And a lot of times, most of the time, most of the time, He speaks to us through His Word.
You know that.
But it makes me tremble when I realize the average high school teenager spends five minutes
a week in the Bible.
Five minutes a week.
No wonder we don't hear God very much.
I like this one, another observation is, much of what God says to me is just real earthy.
By that I don't mean crude, but it's just earthy.
One of my favorite books in the scripture that constantly just messes me up.
It almost makes me discontented, which I'm glad is the book of Acts.
And I read the book of Acts.
I remember one time I sat down and I read the book of Acts from beginning to end in
one sitting, and one of the phrases I noticed over and over and over was this phrase, and
the Holy Spirit said, and the Holy Spirit said, and the Holy Spirit said, and the Holy
Spirit said.
And what I noticed as I read the book of Acts, when the Holy Spirit spoke, it was just kind
of earthy.
I used to think when the Holy Spirit would speak to me, it would just kind of be, thou
who dwelleth among the cherubim, Sila.
You know what?
This is important.
What I noticed in the scripture is when the Holy Spirit would speak specifically in the
book of Acts, like one of the incidences, Peter's up on top of a building and the Holy
Spirit says, Peter, listen, there are going to be some guys coming along in a few minutes.
You go downstairs, you meet them, and don't be afraid.
Don't have any misgivings.
Like pretty earthy.
Hey, Paul, Paul and Barnabas, I got work for you.
There it is.
Go, go for it.
Hey, Philip, there's a guy in a chair that's going to be coming along.
I want you to join yourself.
Well, see, that sounds like stuff I would say.
Not God, but the good news is that's called God stooping to our level.
That's big.
It takes time to recognize God's voice.
We're going to stumble and bumble with that a lot.
You know, for some of you that listening to the voice of the Spirit is not a regular thing
for you, you know what?
You are going to blow it.
You're going to make some mistakes, but the good news is if you say, you know, Lord, like
Mary, if you said only one thing is necessary, well, then I want to be about that.
And I want to learn to just walk in the water.
Yeah, I'm going to make some mistakes.
In baseball, if a guy gets four hits out of 10, we give him a trophy.
He missed six.
As Christians, we always want to hear God all the right way.
Perfect.
We won't.
But we can grow in that listening.
Do you know if you took 10 women, lined them up across the stage, blindfolded me and let
each of them speak?
If one of my one of those women was my mother, I'd recognize her voice at the time.
You know why?
Because I've been listening to her voice for a lifetime.
I was reading about Reese Howell in the scripture.
The book described Reese Howell basically this way.
It said Reese Howell knew the voice of God better than he knew the voice of his own mother.
Why? because it's been a lifetime listening.
We're going to miss it, son, but it's okay.
Which basically means whenever we think God's Spirit is speaking to us, I think we need
to use the language that the author of Acts did in 1528 where it said, it seemed good
to us and the Holy Spirit.
I don't go up to people and say, the Holy Spirit told me.
I'm not sure.
I miss it.
It's a humbling thing to listen to the Spirit.
We need to have that humility in us.
It seems like this is what the Holy Spirit's saying.
I'm not sure.
I wish that guy would have said that about the coffee animal.
A couple of more things before I'm getting ready to give a hook that's going to hook
you in a minute because I believe there's a word, a word that I haven't gotten to yet
is the word for tonight.
Listening was one of the primary activities of Jesus.
I don't do anything on my own initiative, but only what I hear, that's what I say.
You know, if you were to summarize the life of Jesus in all of simplicity, it would just
be response.
I respond to whatever God says to me.
If you want to live like Jesus, you will be a listener.
Yes, you will.
I find that amazing that Jesus said, I do nothing on my own initiative.
That's God in a pure sandal.
I wait and I listen to my Father.
When I see where my Father's working, I go work.
When I hear what He's saying, that's what I say.
When I see what He's doing, that's what I do.
That's the way Jesus lived His life.
Listening to the Father, listening to the Father.
I was at a conference years ago with 1,600 high school kids, none of which had a clue
about what listening to God was about.
Their background just didn't present that as an option.
I got up for 30 minutes and just said, if you're a Christian, I want you to know you're
wired for sound, my sheep hear my voice.
I want you just to listen to the Spirit.
Then I sat down.
I said, if you get an impression, put an expression.
We just sat there for about five minutes and nothing happened.
All of a sudden, a little boy from the back got up and he walked all the way down.
He found out later he was 14 years old and he came up to me and he said these terrifying
words.
Can I have a microphone?
I said, why?
He said, I think I need to say something.
I said, are you pretty sure you do?
This little kid got right in my face.
Yep.
So I handed that kid the microphone and he turned around and I quote verbatim or close
to verbatim.
He said, I've never done anything like this before, but I was sitting in the back and
this guy was talking about listening to the Holy Spirit and I thought, well, I'll give
it a shot.
I just said, Holy Spirit speak to me.
And he said, I just, I sensed you did.
And he said, stepdad, you're in this audience somewhere.
Apparently his stepdad was a counselor for the kids.
He said, stepdad, I just need to say to you, I never gave you a chance.
And you became part of our family.
And could you ever forgive me?
He said, mother, you're in this audience somewhere and I know you believe in hell because I created
a hell in our family.
Could you ever forgive me?
He said, sister, I know you're here somewhere.
He said, I have nestled in you times without number.
Could you ever forgive me?
All of a sudden I saw a little stepdad and I saw mom and I saw daughter come and I saw
them begin to connect up and I saw God right under my nose begin to, excuse me, begin to
heal the family right there.
You know what I noticed?
Not a deep truth, but boy what a beautiful truth.
It's like when one person says yes, all of a sudden the wind began to blow a little harder.
Another kid, the Spirit of God began to speak to him, began to move.
That little ministry time went about three and a half hours.
And I tell you, the wind of the Spirit, and I want to be real careful about this, but
I believe I can say this with accuracy, the wind of the Spirit was blowing in such a powerful
way that I felt my hair move.
Why?
Because some hot dog speaker was speaking?
No.
But because one little fourteen year old boy listened and responded, experiencing the voice
of the Lord.
I want to close with this.
Turn to Hebrews chapter three.
Hebrews chapter three, seven and eight, because I'm looking into some of your eyeballs tonight
and I really see a hunger to be a listener and a hearer.
Hebrews three, seven and eight, and I just want to talk about the price, the price of
listening to God.
There is a price tag.
I mean some of you want to be a listener so bad, you're looking at me like this.
I mean you're going to get a hernia if you don't relax.
I think hearing God is not a hernia kind of a thing.
I think it can be a restful thing.
Hebrews three, seven and eight, let me prove it to you.
Hebrews three, seven and eight, therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, there it is,
as the Holy Spirit speaks, today if you hear His voice, today if you do, I'm not making
Him speak, I'm not gritting Him into speaking, I'm not having a hernia, I'm not, today if,
if you do, if you do, if you do, you hear Him speak, do not harden your heart.
Toby come up here just for a minute, I want to use you for a minute.
Just want you to hold the Bible right under there.
Now I'm going to illustrate this in a weird way, but this is what I believe.
When we're talking about Pensacola revival, can I tell you a piece of it?
I'm getting ready to give you a piece of it right here.
Today, if you hear the Spirit speak to you, don't harden your heart.
Now let me illustrate this in a weird way, kind of a goofy funny story beginning, but
then it gets sad at the end.
One morning, can you just stand there for a minute, one morning, doesn't hardly happen
to me very often, 3.30, quarter to four in the morning, I awaken, wide awake in my bedroom,
and I notice I'm hungry to hear God.
That's not normally me unless I'm in kind of a unique season of my life.
Normally it takes me about 10 cups of coffee to come into consciousness.
That's where I normally live.
But this particular morning, man, I awaken, and I'm hungry to hear God, and my first assumption
is this, God is going to say something huge to me today.
I look over at my wife, she's still sound asleep, old, tender, sensitive husband that
I am.
I'm thinking I'll just keep the lights off, I'll be real quiet, I'll get dressed, I'll
go down to the church and have quiet time to study there, and I'll listen to God.
Leaving the lights off in my bedroom was a bad idea, because with polio, I don't walk
well with halogen lighting.
So I'm in my closet, trying to get dressed, it's the first time in my life I ever put
my pants on and zipped them in the back, that's the truth, that is the truth.
I had two different shoes on, I fell into my closet three separate times.
It was a disaster.
And my sweet, spirited, quiet, gentle wife, in one of those moments, I heard that sweet
little voice coming across the bed, you're driving me crazy!
No sweet, sensitive, gentle, spirit-filled man that I am.
I said, I'm gonna go spend time with God!
And so finally I took my two different colored shoes and my pants that zipped in the back,
in my Bible, and I got in my car and I went to church, because this was gonna be the big
one!
True story, I'm at the office, I got the Word open, hanging around the lake, I'm casting
my lure in.
Speak, Lord, thy servant is missing.
Nothing.
About 90 minutes go by as I remember, and all of a sudden it seemed to me the Holy Spirit
said, your wife, Luana, is awake now.
And I remember my honest response was, so?
Because I was expecting this!
Go to Russia!
The Holy Spirit said, you know, you were unkind to her this morning.
I'm not beating you up with it, but I want you to give her a call and humble yourself,
ask her to forgive you.
You know what I said?
I said, no.
Today you hear His voice, it won't harden your heart.
David, no.
You know, David, that's a real nice message, but you know, I just don't seem to hear God
very much.
Maybe I'm just not a mystic.
Maybe that's just for the elders, the pastors.
My sheep, my sheep, hear my voice.
And I know them.
The issue, ladies and gentlemen, is not that I don't think we hear God enough.
I think the issue is that we're not saying like the little boy, speak more.
Your servant is listening.
And I will obey.
I will obey.
Thanks, Toby.
You know, the church that I think that God's raising up in America, the Revelation chapter
3, verse 20, the church of Laodicea, has got one of the spookiest pictures in the whole
Bible to me.
It's spooky.
It's Jesus standing outside the door of the church.
Jesus standing outside the door of the church saying, behold, you've heard this probably,
many of you use this verse to become Christians.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him.
I have fellowship.
I just, I really, really like this church.
That's a God thing.
That's just a soulless thing.
And I pray for you, dear one, that you'll be listeners.
You'll be lovers, but you'll be listeners.
Wouldn't it be great if every morning we awakened, I'm talking about me too, and we really did
say as a lifestyle, good morning, Holy Spirit.
What have we got today?
Throughout the day, good afternoon, Holy Spirit, what have we got today?
You got anything?
The answer is yes, before you even say it.
You just bow your heads with me.
Maybe in the quietness of this moment you just need to say, speak, Lord, dear Son, hear
us.
You might say, go to Russia, but I guess it would be a lot more practical.
You might just say, for some of you, I really love you.
Every time I hand you a bouquet of flowers, you cut off the tops.
Quit doing that.
Just let me love you.
I want to forgive you.
I got a neighbor down the street.
I want you to be Jesus with skin to them.
Alamo City Fellowship, a church for seekers of Jesus.
People who listen and when they hear, they respond.
You're worried and bothered about so many things, really only a few things are necessary.
Really, only one.
And Mary chose it.
Do you choose it?
Do I choose it?
What do you want, Solomon?
I'll give you any one thing you want.
What do you want?
I want a wise and a hearing heart.
God, that's what I want.
I just want you to listen for a few moments and David just lead us to worship.
If the Spirit of God is telling you to do something, would you do it?
Might be to go to somebody.
Might be to pray.
Would you just be willing to say, Lord Jesus, speak to my heart?
I've said no a lot and I got a callous there.
Would you soften that callous?
Speak for him.
I'll obey.